No abstract

Strategic decision making for rare events is considered to be an arduous course of actions as their impacts cannot accurately be modeled. Transmission of electrical power is a major challenge in this day and age due to the prevalent of rare events. Decision makers of generation units, distribution utilities, and transmission networks do not often cooperate, which creates severe uncertainties for all players. Growth of demand for electricity and installation or removal of distributed generation (DG), considered to be a rare event, are among uncertainties encountered by transmission network owners. Expansion decisions for transmission lines should be strategically executed because installations of DGs may create a stranded cost for transmission owners. In this study, we propose a real options framework that quantifies the values of transmission investments under demand and DG uncertainties to guide decision makers of transmission companies regarding how to adapt their expansions decisions. We model demand uncertainty as a geometric Brownian motion process and DG uncertainty as a Poisson arrival process. We devise a computationally-efficient lattice diagram to discretize both processes in a single grid, which can also be employed to model other types of rare events in various sectors. The proposed framework is demonstrated on a realistic transmission network. Numerical study shows that our proposed lattice model is computationally superior over existing diagrams. As for managerial insights, it shows that depending on the locations of DG installations, DG penetration may not reduce the value of a transmission network. If the center at which a DG is installed has a large-capacity local generator, the installation may not undervalue the transmission network.

No abstract

Kucuksayacigil, Fikri, "Real options models and analyses for energy transportation systems with jump and diffusion processes: Electric power transmission planning and fuel-carrying ship design" (2018). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 16394.